


Nothin' Like College

by AlphaMercy



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Gen, and specifically fran bc she's the one who sent the fucking link yeah, i blame this on the chat group (again), this is idefk ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:59:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaMercy/pseuds/AlphaMercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhys' second semester of his first year of college has started, and he's feeling kinda shitty. It's been a long day, and all he wants is to curl up on his bed and maybe sleep. So, of course, he gets back to his dorm to find a small naked (and completely <em>wasted</em>) man standing in the lounge by his dorm room.</p><p>Or, that one fic that explains how Rhys and Vaughn met in college.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothin' Like College

**Author's Note:**

> because _someone_ (coughfrancough) sent [this](http://episodechooseyourstory.tumblr.com/post/146319813379/what-would-you-do-you-choose-what-path-your) over a chat. so yeah. enjoy

Rhys is away at college. It’s his first year, and he’s still sort of floundering. It’s his second semester and the only people he knows beyond the classmate level is his sister’s girlfriend. She works part-time in the campus coffee shop, and would occasionally invite Rhys out with him. Her name was Molly and she was a business major. She was only 17, but was emancipated and had graduated high school early.

When they had first met, he had sort of, well, been high on pain meds. He had found Molly in their kitchen, thought she was there to steal the _sink_ , of all things, and proceeded to assault the woman with his (fairly heavy) high school calculus book. Thankfully Molly _didn’t_ press charges and understood what had happened. Rhys hadn’t been able to meet the girl’s eye for at least two months. But, other than that, he likes Molly. She’s a bit quiet, and private, but she wasn’t horrible. And she was good to his sister, so Rhys feels comfortable enough with her to go out once in awhile.

It was just...he doesn’t _know_ anyone else. And he was feeling kind of lonely. Rhys just wishes he has someone to talk to, not connected to his family, or with the weirdest first impression of him.

But there’s no one and Rhys is alone. His roommate is a douche by the name of Hugo Vasquez who assumes he’s god’s gift to humanity. He hates him quite a bit. And the asshole tends to stress his snake out, so Rhys needs to find a new roommate before the man kills poor Glitter.

He gives a sigh, hiking his bag further up on his shoulder, and continues towards the art building. He has one last class, his elective drawing course, and then he can just go back to his room and sleep. Vasquez was out tonight, some party at “this hot dude’s house yeah we’re _totally_ hooking up.” So Rhys, for once, isn’t all that all that worried.

He stops by the vending machine just inside the doorway, and grabs two sodas and a Milky Way bar. Rhys stares blankly as the drinks fall down and hit the bottom, wishing he could just Jedi Force the shit out and into his hands, instead of leaning down like he’s doing now and sticking his arm awkwardly into the slot. He repeats the process with the candy bar, and then heads off in the direction of his lass.

He checks the time on his phone, realizing he’s almost fifteen minutes early. _Great_.

So Rhys slows down, scrolling through his tumblr dashboard and queueing most of the posts he liked, all of them revolving around Hyperion and it’s infamous(ly Handsome) CEO, Handsome Jack. Rhys runs a fanblog dedicated to the man, and his company. He has over one thousand followers, which was honestly a surprise, considering he only got the motivation to make it a month or two ago. There are a few things he reblogs, and he puts some on his personal, before he puts his phone away and steps through the classroom door.

The room is large and empty when he gets there, as he’s still five minutes early. He sets his things down at his favorite station, by the windows overlooking the gardens. It’s quiet as he takes his sketchbook out, and places his pencils on the desk. Rhys wonders what they’re supposed to be drawing today as he glances at the middle of the room where a white box sat.

He sketches in his book, mostly little doodles. There’s one or five Handsome Jack ones, one of Glitter, and another of his sisters with Ma and Mom, playing soccer. Rhys misses his family a lot. He was used to being around them often, jokes and taunts, shoving each other playfully, fighting over the bathroom in the morning. His Ma cooking breakfast and Mom working in her little green room, shitty nineties pop (from _Earth_ that’s how old the stuff was) playing as Rhys woke slowly, enjoying the mornings of Talao.

But he wasn’t there. Instead, he lived a good ways from his home and family, having gone away, choosing his second choice and not going to community like his sisters were planning on when they finished high school. Not like there was anything wrong with community; it was just that Rhys wanted to get away from Talao, see more of what Eden-5 had to offer. And then—then he had opened the mailbox, and a letter from both his second and first choice colleges had come in. The first had offered him a few weak “sorry’s” and rejected him, but the second had gone much further than Rhys expected.

Not only had they offered quite the scholarship, but a chance to go _much_ further than Rhys had originally thought (on top of a few other things). Which is how he ended up halfway across the planet at HU, one of the many colleges funded by Hyperion, which they use to find prospective employees and such. Rhys hopes to be one of the people picked at the end of his last year. His dream job is working for Hyperion, making amazing things and maybe even meeting Handsome Jack himself.

Rhys knows he’s a fanboy, but he doesn’t really care. And it’s not like _other_ people know he’s a fanboy. He’s good about keeping that stuff to himself. Not like he knows anyone well enough to worry about them finding it out.

Rhys sighs and drinks his rootbeer as classmates file in, chattering and laughing with each other.

And then a naked person walks out of the back room, and Rhys chokes on his soda, suddenly remembering what the lesson was for today.

_Nude models._

~~~~~~

Rhys flees the classroom as soon as he physically can, face still bright red. He’s never seen so many naked people in one place. Class is finally over, and he feels as if he’ll burst into flames of embarrassment. Rhys just wanted to go back to his dorm. There was food in his mini-fridge, which means he doesn’t need to stop in the cafe and pick anything up. Rhys just wants to fall face first into his bed and forget the last three hours, and maybe sleep for the next day or three. But instead, what he does is leave campus, getting on the bus still toting his giant bag full of college-related crap, and heads into the town nearby. He’s running low on feeders, and Glitter’s feeding day is soon. Also he loves looking at all the different reptiles he’ll never be able to afford.

The store he uses, _Maggie’s Scales_ , is located by the small park the town has, and Rhys likes to get off at the stop on the other side and walk through. He gets an ice cream, chocolate with rainbow sprinkles, and waves to Greg Walters, the old man who feeds the pigeons. He helps the older man occasionally with moving stuff around his house, and other things like his car. He likes to think he’s good with computers, even without his ( _very_ old) ECHOeye.

The shop is in sight now, some kids screaming to the left, cars driving by, and the setting sun warm on his back. Rhys feels like maybe the rest of this semester won’t be too bad. Rhys tosses the almost-finished cone before he crosses the street to get to the store.

When he gets to the shop, Maggie gives him a brief ‘hello’ and goes back to the customer she’s working with. The feeders are over towards the back, and he takes his time, wandering around and looking at the different reptiles. There are a nice clutch of eggs in one tank, the momma snake curled around them, and in another there are the _cutest_ little leopard geckos. A few beta fish swim in separate tanks, a bird in a cage on the other side of the store squawking in annoyance. It smelled like water and feed and _animals_ and Rhys **loved** it.

Eventually the customer is satisfied and they leave. Rhys sighs and moves to the counter, smiling at the animals he passes by. Maggie is crouched behind the counter, looking at something and shuffling papers around. Rhys leans against it and waits for her, checking his tumblr briefly.

“So, how many ya need this time, kid?”

“Eh, just give me ten. I have a few left, but I just wanted to make sure I’m set, y’know?”

Maggie laughs and nods, heading back to the freezer to retrieve the feeders. She comes back out, a small box in her hands. Just another thing to carry.

He pays, telling her goodnight and then he’s off to the nearest bus stop. The sun is casting long shadows on the ground, and the air is cooling. Birds still tweet though, and kids still play. Rhys thinks he almost feels at home here, in this tiny town.

The bus ride back is quiet, and he hurries to his building, wanting to get the feeders into his freezer before they start to thaw. The lights are coming on now, the sun dipping low on the horizon. He swipes his card, juggling his other things on one arm as he inputs his code, and slips inside. He lives on the third floor, and it’s a bit of hike because the elevator broke this morning. So by the time he gets to his landing, he’s even more tired than he had been.

So Rhys is pretty much done with his day as he walks down the hall to his room. The lounge is coming up, and there’s noise coming from it, but that isn’t _that_ unusual, since it _is_ a lounge. He plans to just ignore whoever is might be, and just head on straight to his room. No need to get dragged into whatever shenanigans those people might be doing.

But as he rounds the corner, his plans go completely off-track. There’s a man standing in his way, buck-naked, ass whiter than the moon pointing at Rhys’ face. Not to say it wasn’t a _nice_ ass or anything, because it _was,_ but Rhys wasn’t expecting it. And he just...just wasn’t in the mood for that type of shit right now.

He clears his throat, tearing his eyes from the ass, and up to the top of the man’s body, a face turning towards him. There’s mussed brown hair, glasses sat askew on a straight nose, and an orange and black tie (it was _so_ ugly, honestly do people not have fashion sense?). Which was the only piece of clothing on the small man has on. The _very_ drunk man, if the beer cans on the table were anything to go by.

“HI! ‘M tha nakeeeeed maaaaan!” He says, waving enthusiastically with one hand, the other placed on a hip.

Rhys blinks, shifting uncomfortably. He was caught between “get the fuck out” and “ohmygodwhy.” Tough choice.

Rhys eventually settles on, “Uh, hi? Are you...are you okay?”

“Jussshh fiiiine! Y-” he pauses to let out a belch, “ya caan call meh Vaun!”

“Ah, nice to meet you? You can call me Rhys, I guess.”

Rhys made to walk past ‘Vaun’, but the man cut him off.

“Whash tha in yur hansh?”

“Feeders,” Rhys says shortly, starting to feel cranky.

“Waaas that?”

Rhys sighs, sets his things down, and opens the box to show ‘Vaun’ what was inside. The man promptly yelps and stumbles backwards.

And, so went the first meeting between the two future best friends. A sleepless night of drunken rambling and headache-inducing actions. The next day, after _finally_ passing out, Vaughn awakes and apologizes, surprised to find himself in drowning in sweats much too long for him. At least Rhys had found a new roommate. Though he was a _horrible_ lightweight.

**Author's Note:**

> look man, look. I know the ending is rushed, but I'm tired and I've been trying to finish this for three days.
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://handsomejackisback.tumblr.com)


End file.
